Public schools a big winner in election

Public schools were a big winner in Tuesday’s election, but San Diego County voters took to their ballots with more tax weariness than their counterparts elsewhere the state.

Bond measures that will generate billions of fresh dollars for schools passed statewide and regionally, ensuring that weeks won’t be shaved from the current school year and — educators hope — years of fiscal neglect will be addressed.

Election 2012

Proposition 30, which raises the sales tax for everyone and imposes a higher income-tax rate on the richest Californians, passed with about 54 percent support statewide. Voters in San Diego County rejected Gov. Jerry Brown’s initiative; the measure garnered barely 46 percent support, with about one-third of the ballots — absentees and provisionals — still uncounted.

Statewide, 81 percent of the 106 local education bonds on the ballot passed, according to School Services of California, a consulting firm in Sacramento.

In San Diego County, voters approved at least six of the 11 bonds. (Two more measures are failing, but their outcomes could change if the pending provisional ballots push them over the 55 percent threshold needed for passage.)

For Brown, the statewide election results were an outright victory for schools.

“The lesson last night was a clear and resounding victory for children, schools and the California dream,” Brown said Wednesday. “The people of California have put their trust in a bold path forward.”

Brown attributed the victory to a number of factors, but highlighted what he believed was the public’s recognition that California has trimmed all fat from its budget.

In addition to Proposition 30, voters on Tuesday approved Proposition 39 to close a tax loophole employed by out-of-state corporations to avoid about $1 billion in taxes each year. At least 40 percent of that money is now designated for K-12 schools and public education.

Despite passage of those propositions, Brown said it will take time to adequately restore school revenues after years of underfunding. The state owes public schools more than $9 billion that it had borrowed over time by not fully complying with the minimum-funding guarantees mandated by Proposition 98.

The new revenues are expected to be used in the second half of the 2012-13 school year to avoid any more cuts, lost school days or college fees.

Then the state will put Proposition 30 money into an “education trust fund” starting in the 2013-2014 school year. Brown pledged that the account would not be touched for other programs or tapped for borrowing.

Separately, Proposition 39 revenues will be folded into the broader education budget in 2013-14.

“The state has been reaching into the pocket of school districts to take money out because it couldn’t pay its bills. That day is over,” Brown said.

Skeptics said Proposition 30 is no cause for a party because it steers schools away from cuts for only this year.

“If we have come to the point that victory is holding the line steady, that just shows how desperate we are,” said Bey-Ling Sha, a parent advocate and communications professor at San Diego State University. “Victory is providing adequate funding that’s stable year after year and is transparently accounted for.”